A coating layer on an OPC drum in a printing system acts as a charge transfer layer. During printing operations, the coating layer of the OPC drum is slowly worn down. Typically, this wear rate is about one micron per one-thousand pages and one life cycle of an OPC drum is usually about ten-thousand printed pages. Often after one life cycle, the OPC drum is disposed of, even though the OPC drum may have multiple life cycles left.
Attempts have been made to determine which OPC drums may have additional life cycles remaining, but these attempts have not been successful. For example, after use an OPC drum may be visually inspected for obvious flaws. If the OPC drum does not appear to be damaged, then the OPC drum is reused. Additionally, a manual measurement of the coating thickness may be taken and if the operator believes there is enough coating left to complete an additional life-cycle, then the OPC drum may be reused.
Unfortunately, these prior techniques are often inaccurate in analyzing the remaining life span of an OPC drum. Additionally, these techniques can be time consuming and thus the OPC drum is more likely to be replaced, then reused even though remaining life cycles may be available.